Various types of board games exist that tend to provide social interaction but having game-play that involves only rudimentary mechanics, such as dice rolling, card collecting, and piece movement. These are enjoyed by many people who can gather together for the social aspects of playing a board game, such as Clue® by Parker Brothers or 21 B Baker Street by John N. Hanson & Co., although typically board games are necessarily limited in nature and/or scope by the amount of recreational time that players are willing to devote to playing games. Thus, such games tend not to play well or attract interest if they require cumbersome calculations or lengthy periods of time to play to completion.
In the last 20-25 years, however, computers have provided a new venue for game-playing. These games tend to use the great strength of computers—in number crunching, making hundreds of routine calculations, and the like—to provide for reflex-type arcade games, artificial intelligence-simulating strategy games, graphics, and various others. Examples include Myst® by Cyan Productions, Nancy Drew® by Her Interactive, and the Carmen San Diego® series by Electronic Arts & Broderbund. Computer games also tend to make it easy to save a game for continued play at a later time. The Internet has, for the last several years, permitted multiple players to join in a game, role-play, inhabit the same virtual world, or the like as each player logs in from their respective computer. Computer-based games, however, tend to be played alone or with players in other physical locations, thereby losing the social interactions and benefits that come from people joining together in the same room at the same time. Although some computer games bring people together in the same room, competitive-type computer games either involve people hunching together over a single keyboard at a single monitor or require each player to take a turn while the others move away or even leave the room.
A few such toys and games have been designed that attempt to incorporate interactivity with certain features of games are described below.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,341,385 discloses a game board with tokens for players to pursue an imaginary thief whose location is not apparent on the board but is held in a memory or storage register of a digital computing apparatus. The board contains several types and possible paths of movement between locations, and the location of the thief is periodically moved based on pre-defined rules and player input. The computing apparatus also produces sounds following the thiefs moves, and generates audible sounds indicating success or failure in catching the thief.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,582 discloses an electronic board game including a flat translucent surface with a light source, a plurality of playing pieces, and a hand held mover object. The light source is a bulb in series with a reed switch and energy source, and the playing pieces are magnetic in nature. The hand held component contains a magnet to repel the board's surface, and can take the form of a ring, pistol, finger, or any other shape depending on the game logo. The light source is activated by the magnetic flux of the playing pieces as they advance, so as to form a message in the game board surface that is communicated in words or drawings to the player.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,120,065 discloses a talking board game having a board and electronic computer system to provide speech information to players, and cards that can be read by the electronic computer system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,980 discloses an interactive learning device in the form of an open book for toddlers and preschoolers. In one embodiment, the book has three-dimensional alphabet letters received by a card spelling a word; the book receives the card and a speech processor circuit recites the word and sounds the phonic when the correct letters are added. In other embodiments, the book is a simple translator, a math calculator for elementary mathematical operations, and the sounds and names associated with various animals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,939 discloses a device for decoding distorted images from a sheet that includes a reflecting geometric figure. A reflecting surface can be applied to a can to decode an anamorphic image applied on a separate sheet, and a reflecting canister can be used to decode and include a removable top holding images therein and a light source to illuminate distorted images. A game is described using the geometric reflecting pieces to decode commands of the game.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,304 discloses a phonics and reading teaching device depicting an arrangement of indicia of the alphabet letters and their associated phenomes. Selection causes the device to generate an audio signal or other response from a speaker, with affirmative acknowledgement when the letters of a word are selected in the correct order.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,916,024 discloses a system and method for evaluating responses to broadcast programs, such as television, and a signal transmitted therewith or time-multiplexed to the television signals. Remote audience members can respond vocally or on a keyboard, and the system can include a NINTENDO or SEGA game.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,052 discloses a display pointing device including a housing, optical sensor mounted therein, and processing circuitry receiving output from the optical sensor for identifying a location on the display pointed to by the pointing device, as well as methods for operating the display pointing device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,872 discloses an interactive board game that is played during the inactivity in a sporting event, particularly a televised one, using a game board and several sets of cards dealing with the knowledge of the viewer of the sporting event.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,373,464 discloses a computer input device with a housing in the shape of a magnifying glass having a lens portion and a handle extending therefrom. A detector is mounted in the housing and operable to detect an element displayed on a computer display and to generate a corresponding detection signal and an actuator mounted on the housing. A partially reflective, angularly disposed beam splitter can be used such that a user can observe an image on a computer screen through the beam splitter and the image can be reflected to the detector.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,547,628 discloses a toy including housing, input and output devices, an overlay and a controller. The output device may include an array of light sources, a grid having an array of tubular holes with each hole aligning with the light source where the grid is placed over the array, and a diffuser placed over the grid to collect light emitted from the light sources. The diffuser may be translucent and may include at least a portion covered with an opaque coating. The overlay is moved over the surface and interacts therewith.
Various educational and learning toys are also described in a series of U.S. patents and published U.S. patent applications assigned to Leapfrog Enterprises, Inc., including the following patent documents. U.S. Pat. No. 6,608,618 discloses methods of generating audio output by marking on a sheet in the vicinity of a print element with a marking instrument. Reissue No. 38,286 discloses an electrographic surface position location system and method. U.S. Pat. No. 6,641,401 discloses an interactive apparatus with templates to produce audio output. U.S. Pat. No. 6,668,156 discloses a print media receiving unit including platform and print media, including a stylus operatively coupled to the platform. U.S. Pat. No. 6,661,405 and Publication No. 20030016210 A1 each disclose an electrographic position location apparatus and method that employs an antenna system and a signal strength detector. U.S. Publication No. 20030162162 A1 discloses a write-on interactive apparatus and method. U.S. Publication No. 20030218604 A1 discloses another interactive apparatus using print media.
These apparatuses, games, and learning tools, tend to be more in the nature of learning devices, computer peripheral equipment to assist in playing computer games and the like. Thus, it is desired to provide a game that provides the beneficial social elements of a board game with the interactivity of computer hardware- or software-based components, as well as the equipment and methods of playing such a game.